Organising a creative, adventurous and contented life

April 2013

29/04/2013

I write a lot about the importance of simplifying, but really the main reason to simplify is to make room for meaningful relationships and experiences. And these can be complicated! A friend said to me the other day, “Relationships and parenting are the two most challenging things we will ever take on in our lives. They just trade places with each other for level of challenge.”

Literature also contains many quotes pointing to the value in complexity, for example:

“Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and begin to think multi-dimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience—to appreciate the fact that life is complex.” M. Scott Peck

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost

So complicated and challenging is not always bad. It can help us grow, stay engaged with life, and leave us satisfied and with rich memories. Especially when they’re things we’ve chosen and especially when we have enough time, energy, money, and support to give them. Simplifying can help us free the resources we need to deal with the complicated and worthwhile stuff.

Any time we start a relationship, take on an activity, or reach for a dream, we add complexity. We've just rescued a dog from the animal shelter, for example, and Bonnie will add a lot of joy to our lives, but there is also a whole lot of work involved to care for her well! The key is to use ourselves up on these important things and simplify or do away with the rest.

Some advice about simplifying needs to be taken with caution—such as the idea that we should cull difficult relationships or hobbies that need lots of equipment. Sometimes this is necessary, but if the relationship or interest is important enough, facing the messiness and intensity instead of running from it can mean we come out the other side a stronger person, with a better relationship, or with a more fully developed talent to offer the world.

25/04/2013

There are many things you wouldn’t know about me from reading my blog, obviously.

I sometimes scroll through the archives and think, my goodness, this person is so organised and efficient! That’s true in many ways, but there is also a much broader picture of course, one that contains mess and contradictions and slow growth with plenty of backward steps.

In my unplugged life, I’m not always Ms Extra Organised. I sleep late even when there’s something important to get up for, am often indecisive, have arrived at school with one of the kids missing their shoes (more than once), not cleaned the floor for weeks at a time, let my children wear thongs around Parliament House, and I make them do my hair if they want more than one chapter of a book read in the evenings.

I also have far too many clothes for a minimalist (200-ish at last count—and please count yours if you have time, as I’m planning a post on this soon). I also cleared a mountain of stuff (see photo) from my children’s bedrooms recently—so much for minimalism!

Oh, and I have to push really, really hard to make things happen. That’s why I consider this blog to be a triumph—it’s made me overcome my techno-laziness and means I need to write regularly. I’ve found that when Igo out and do what I say is important to me, it’s damn hard work. It can be almost as complicated and scary and frustrating as it can be exciting and rewarding and fulfilling, but that’s part of a meaningful life.

And that’s why I’m expecting the fulfilment of my 12 in 2 list to be an adventure. It’s more about the process of attempting each experience rather than ticking each one off and I’m expecting my experiences to vary from my original list (certainly if the first update is anything to go by). But it’s a good starting point and a motivator toward actively engaging with my life and creating memories.

That’s only the beginning, but you get the idea, and I don’t want to lose all my organising credentials, after all! Researching and writing about organising and minimalism and mindfulness is as much a learning and growing journey for me as it is for you, my lovely readers :)

Thank you for joining me as we continue to find tweaks and take action to make the world and our experience of it a little bit better and as we push aside the irrelevant and the unimportant to make room for what truly matters.

22/04/2013

Play gives our children the space to explore, create, relax, and figure out the world and their place in it. There is much pleasure to be found playing in nature and in sharing some ‘grown-up’ activities together. Toys and screens are fun, but they can be add-ons rather than the standard experience of play.

Children are often more capable than we realise. Master 8 managed to change the inner tube in one of his pushbike tyres recently. He asked his dad a couple of questions, then came back and asked a few more, and before we knew it he’d done the whole job himself. Along the way he had a go at solving problems on his own, for example, he filled his wheelbarrow with water to check for leaks in the tube as he’d previously seen his father do something similar. He was fully absorbed in the task—what as adults we’d describe as being in flow—and we could tell he was proud of what he’d done.

Of course, sometimes no matter how hard you try, the screens still find their way back in. The photo at the bottom was taken at a remote spot on the Old Telegraph Track (Cape York, Australia). We were watching 4WD’s crossing a treacherous section of track. In between vehicle entertainment, the cheeky young lad snuck Donkey Kong out of his pocket :)

15/04/2013

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.Lyn Yutang

A better measure of success than getting everything done—and a surer path to contentment—is learning to be present regardless of what is happening around us.

It’s possible to be calm and at ease in the midst of a messy home (although less likely), and we can still be anxious and unfocused even though our floors are shiny and our calendar is up-to-date. Whether or not we are ‘caught up’ is no indication of how completed we feel.

The drive to completion is normal and healthy, but like anything taken to extremes it can be counter-productive. Overdone, it comes at the expense of what is most meaningful and it kills flexibility. Managed well and with a light touch, it supports a complex and wondrous life.

How do we know when we’re done anyway? When there’s nothing on our do list, when the house is spotless, or after we’ve resolved any relationship issues? And do we mean caught up externally (the house is tidy) or internally (a calm mind)? It could be argued that our inner world is more important anyway; trying to force completion outside ourselves can be a salve for the messiness we feel within.

We’ll always live in a balance between the done and the undone. I’ve been thinking about some ways to make this easier, and this is what I’ve come up with so far.

Figure out what you actually want to get done. A better method than trying to get everything done is to try to get our priorities done. If we say our relationships, our work, and our interests are most important—then let’s give them our freshest energy and leave the rest undone. As the Chinese writer, Lyn Yutang, said: “The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” Once we know what is non-essential, we don’t have to do it and nor does it deserve to be done.

Refresh your point of view. Slowly and gently practice being comfortable with the uncomfortable. Any time you feel yourself getting worked up over something incomplete see if you can shift the way you see the situation. A different approach can dissolve the tension. For example, you may be upset the kids have left the dining table in a huge mess right before dinner, but it might be a good opportunity for a relaxed dinner at the kitchen bench or in front of a movie?

Embrace the undone. I dare you—and I dare myself!—to be at peace with the way things are, to let go. Make it a game or a challenge: can I let go and survive? It sounds silly but sometimes these are the subconscious stories we tell ourselves. I like to get the house in order before I walk out the door in the mornings and before I go to bed at night. I feel pressure to do this, like it puts me in control and I won’t be able to cope otherwise. But that’s not true and it’s not helpful.

Set up good systems. Capture all the tasks you could possibly work on in an action system, set up a workable calendar, and establish routines for housework. Funnel tasks through your systems so things like cleaning that will never be fully done are taken care of in a workable way. The reassurance of knowing everything is safely within your life framework means you can be done for now. (I talk more about how to set up a life framework in my ebook).

Change the focus of your action lists. Instead of trying to cross everything off, aim instead to keep the lists fresh and current. Keep tasks circulating through by adding (and doing in a timely fashion) new ones and dropping stale ones.

Give attention to your inner life. A clearer mind feels wonderful and at ease. There are lots of ways to nurture this: meditating, paying attention to one person or task at a time, having downtime to process your thinking, unhooking from unhelpful thought patterns, and addressing problems that nag you are a few ideas.

It’s often said that writers write about what they most need to learn and this post is true of me. I chase the holy grail of being caught up as much as anyone. I love an empty inbox, a completed list, and every last thing taken care of. Many years ago, I even tried to get everything done at the same time :) Clean house and yard, to do list ticked off, and calendar cleared for the evening (this was way, waaay before I had kids). At the end of it all, I remember standing—rather tired!—in the backyard with a cold drink in hand, watching an approaching thunderstorm, feeling satisfied and self-righteously current. Everything was done and now I could simply be and get on with more important things.

But of course the feeling was as fleeting as the high of an impulse purchase. Was everything really done anyway? I certainly hadn’t edged the lawn or cleaned the gutters or sorted through my boxes of memorabilia. I realised getting to done was a matter of perception. And there’s no way I could keep it up beyond that one short moment of holding back the incoming tide anyway.

My mother is a master of finding the done within the undone. When I was growing up, we lived in a reasonably tidy, clean home but it wasn’t perfect. While I was wondering how she could function with messy Tupperware drawers, she was busy getting on with life. She juggled many roles well without getting bogged down in minutiae. She’d leave what didn’t need doing to do what did.

It’s taken me a long time to learn that being caught up is an illusion. My aim now is a relaxed and accepting mind that is open to the life I am living and all its blessings, challenges, and possibilities.

There is much that is good in the midst of the undone—there is even beauty there. And delightfully, we are enough—an excellent equivalent to done—just as we are.

One of the activities was easily accomplished, but the other almost didn’t happen.

Take yoga classes.

I work on a university campus, and lunchtime yoga classes were recently introduced, so this was easier than expected. I’ll keep this up as long as the sessions are being offered.

Paddle down a river.

This became float down a river. Earlier this year, I ordered a kayak, but it was never delivered. Although I still plan to buy one elsewhere, I still felt like doing something adventurous on the water this summer. So I decided to jump in the local river myself and float down. I wasn’t doing this on my own though—I found a brave friend and we committed to three possible afternoons during the potentially last hot week of the season. The first two afternoons came and went with other commitments getting in the way. When the third afternoon was ruled out, we decided to duck out during a lunch break and we made it happen! It was exhilarating, chilly, and oh so much fun.

04/04/2013

Children love to feel independent and capable. One way to encourage this is to teach them how to pack their own bag for a trip from an early age. Once they’ve mastered it, it takes so much pressure off getting ready to travel!

My children are aged 8 and 10 and have been doing their own packing for a few years now. It was a slow process to begin with, and involved lots of supervision and repacking, but the effort has paid off.

Give each child their own bag for holidays (preferably separate to their school bag). I find backpacks ideal as they are easy to carry and roomy enough to fit enough clothes for a week. Make sure the backpack is big enough—you don’t want to end up with multiple bags for each child. I also ask them to pack a separate small toy bag they can easily carry around with them.

I give instructions in stages so the kids can handle each step of the packing on their own—as many as each child can handle. Once they’ve had a few practices though, don’t supervise the whole process. Just a quick check at the end to make suggestions is all that’s needed.

Here are the instructions I give. If they are unsure, I ask them to come back to me and check what’s next after they’ve finished each part.

Five easy steps to packing a child’s bag

Pack one outfit for each day plus a spare.

Pack one set of underwear and socks for each day plus a spare.

Add a jumper and a hat/beanie.

Add a pair of shoes in a shoe bag.

Pack bathroom items in the front pocket—toothbrush, toothpaste, and hairbrush.

Oh, and don’t forget they should also unpack their own bags at the end of each trip. I realised how well my 10-year-old daughter had learned to pack recently when she was between trips (a night at her grandparents followed a few days later by a family weekend away). I asked her why she hadn’t unpacked after her grandparents and she replied in exasperation, “I’ve already unpacked and I’m packed again!”

01/04/2013

I should apologise for talking about lists again but I know many of you share my fetish. They’re just so inspiring and mind-clearing and fun to work on :) Now what was I going to talk about? I’m sure it was something more interesting than extolling the benefits of a list!

That’s right—an evening list.

My favourite part of the day is after the sun sets when the mayhem is out of the way, children have been settled in bed with snuggles and chats, and I drop onto the lounge ready to relax. As I have children, this transition time is not always predictable, but it’s what I aim for.

The problem is if I haven’t prepared myself at least a little for how I want to relax, it’s too easy to slip into watching something I hadn’t planned on TV. That’s not always a bad thing, but there are other lovely ways to unwind that I like to anticipate through the day. And anticipating how I’m going to spend the time is almost as good as actually doing it. I love suddenly remembering there’s an episode of Downton Abbey scheduled that night (there's really not much to choose from at the moment!).

The other reason I like to have something to look forward to is that I do my paperwork and bookkeeping at night. Without motivation to move onto something else, I can still be sitting at my desk well after 9 o’clock.

An evening list is a reminder of what I want to indulge in. Sometimes I think only one night ahead or if I’m engrossed in a fabulous book I know exactly what I’ll be doing for the next week. It can also be precise or vague.

Vague might be: read, play the piano, watch a movie, work on a project. I’ll then pick something based on how I feel.